


july is dressed up and playing her tune

by PunkyPower



Category: Dirty Dancing (1987)
Genre: 1980s, Cute Kids, F/M, Getting Back Together, Hopeful Ending, Post-Canon, Post-Divorce, Reunions, Romance, Summer Vacation, putting on a show
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:53:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27640292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PunkyPower/pseuds/PunkyPower
Summary: Frances brings her two daughters to Kellerman's for the summer, hoping to participate in a large fundraising show to help Max pay off the resort's taxes for the year before the state can foreclose on the property.  Johnny, a Broadway star gone touring company mainstay, is directing the show, and more importantly happy to see their daughters in the wake of a difficult divorce.Frances isn't sure if she should run toward or away from her ex-husband, but she's going to have to figure herself out before August turns to September.
Relationships: Johnny Castle/Frances "Baby" Houseman
Comments: 5
Kudos: 20
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	july is dressed up and playing her tune

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thepsychicclam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepsychicclam/gifts).



Frances takes a long, deep breath and fills her lungs with the sweet Catskills air. It’s been too long since she’d been back – twenty years now. The idealistic eighteen year old she’d been when she first arrived was now thirty-eight – she was nearing forty, and did not think to mind it.

“You brought us all the way out here just to look at a bunch of trees?”

She glanced over her shoulder. Jess, her older daughter, had her nose buried in a Wonder Woman comic book, chewing gum between complaints. She was precisely ten years old, and everything Frances asked of her seemed to be an ordeal. 

“It’s not the trees – it’s what’s hiding behind them.” She pointed at the line of cabins, the big outbuildings, all of them gleaming in the late afternoon sunlight. Kellerman's hadn’t changed at all since the early ‘60’s, and Frances was grateful for the familiar outpost of society that it represented after driving through the mountains for the last few hours.

“A camp?” asked Sammy, who at least looked a little more interested, her blue eyes peeping out over the top of her Monchichis teeshirt. Her current interest was ballet.

“The best camp,” came a deep voice in the distance. “The one where I met your mom.”

“DAD!”shouted Jess, ditching the comic on the ground. She was up off the hood of the car in a heartbeat. Resentment clashed with fondness in Frances’ heart as she grabbed the comic from the ground and pitched it into the open back window of her apple red DeSoto. Then it skipped a beat as Johnny rounded the hill and grabbed their daughter up from the pathway.

Sammy wasn’t far behind. The girls clung to him, worshipped him with their eyes, talking excitedly and all at once. They hadn’t seen Johnny since last month, when he’d been in town with the touring company of Guys and Dolls, and the girls had worn their nicest clothing and watched him eagerly from the front row. She and Johnny had been awkward and fond, pleasant – a nice change from the fighting that had driven a wedge between them and caused their divorce four years before.

Johnny gave Frances one of his crooked smiles, running his fingertips through Jess’ hair and then kissing Sammy on the top of her head. “Dinner’s waiting down there,” he told Frances. 

“Thank you,” she said quietly. When would this stop feeling awkward? She’d shared a bed with him for fifteen years. 

“Let me get the bags out,” he said.

“I’ll have to get the car down,” she said. “Meet me at the front desk?”

“Sure.” 

It took Baby a few minutes to get the car turned around, to get it unpacked. Kellermans was so quiet, and, when they walked together into the hot June twilight, Baby realized most of the cabins were empty.

They split a beer on the front porch as the girls made themselves at home in their cabin. “How long has it been this quiet?”

“Since last season,” he said. “Or that’s what Penny told me.”

“I wish I’d gone last year,” she said. But it wasn’t as if Frances Houseman – nee Baby Houseman, one-season wunderkind of the Kellermans ballroom – was a money magnet. Johnny was a star – the biggest star who’d ever danced at the resort. And last season he’d been on tour in Chicago as Billy Flynn.

“You’re here now,” he said. And he watched her the same way he used to during their clandestine mornings, sneaking around behind everyone's backs just to get some private time.

“DAD!” said Jess, hands on her hips. “We have to watch Three’s Company together.”

He smiled. “Sorry, baby. Jack Tripper calls.”

Frances followed him inside. While Jess watched TV, Sammy would want an audience for her dancing, and two pairs of eyes were always better than one with these two.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

“Why is this place so boring?” Jess asked, just a couple of weeks after the Fourth of July and the holiday’s festivities as well as the initial excitement of their arrival had worn off.

“It’s not boring,” said Sammy. “It’s quiet.” She’d been coloring pictures on the floor, while Jess stared out the window.

“We could go on a hike,” said Frances. She’d been rehearsing with Johnny all morning for the big show, the girls had been with their grandparents – who had driven up to celebrate their anniversary and the holiday, and left days later.

“No, I got stung by bees last time,” said Jess.

“Well…we can go see Aunt Penny.”

That set Frances’ two whirling dervishes into motion. She found herself playing shortstop for an impromptu stickball game, and by the end of it they were sweaty lumps sipping away at lemonade.

“You did good with those kids,” said Penny. She watched Sammy turn a somersault 

“Thank you,” she said. 

Sometimes she wondered how Johnny felt about her parenting. She knew he was proud of her in general – after all, she’d become a lawyer between pregnancies and gone into labor with Sammy while arguing a case before the state supreme court - but they never really talked about it. He was a loving father who struggled to be there for the girls while following his muse, and she tried to draw healthy lines in the sand.

“Have things been that bad here? I know Max is trying to put a lot of pressure on Johnny about selling tickets, but…could the resort go under?” Frances asked.

“We’re surviving,” she said. “But we’re going to need a little more. That Houseman magic. None of us can get along without it,” she said.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Johnny had been frustrated all morning. Max wanted him to choreograph a modern dance, and in the summer of 1983 modern dance was all break, all art and technique. There was no ballroom flow, and not even the raunch of dirty dancing to be had.

“Fad dances aren’t as pretty to look at as a madison,” Johnny said. “I don’t think I’m gonna reach these kids by being an old guy doing the robot.”

She wrapped her arm around him. They were both so sweaty, and she was used to the tacky feeling of his skin on hers – after dance practice, after making love with him. It’s easy when they dance – they know each other in silent rhythm.

“So why don’t you give them a taste of 1960s New York?” she asked.

He sighed. “Because Max will probably fire my ass, and that sticks Penny with my bill. She works herself to the bone every summer and here I am, stepping on her toes just because I’ve got a name.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck. “Johnny, you know I still believe in you. Penny believes in you. She understands why Max called you in.”

“I’ve missed your pep talks,” he said.

“You used to call them horseshit,” she reminded him.

He shook his head. “It’s been two years and I miss them. You make me feel alive, Frances Houseman,” said Johnny. “You’re not the only one who had the best years of their life at this place. And you ain’t the only one who misses the feeling of someone special in their arms.”

She wondered how long he’d been thinking of what to say, how to say it, but then she was swept up in his arm, and his kiss blotted everything else in the world out.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

The breeze blew Frances’ hair back, and she rolled toward Johnny, sighing. They had to get up. They had a show to perform in that afternoon. They were going to have to try to make themselves look like gothic robots, and please these young kids – before they lost everything.

Johnny’s face was buried in the crook of her neck. “Can we talk about this after the show?”

“Yeah, but before summer ends,” she told him. They were going to take it slowly. She wasn’t going to let herself get hurt, or even worse - the girls.

“Thank you,” he said. “I miss you, Baby. Out on the road, alone in my apartment – dancing with another woman.”

The road had been what had torn them apart in the first place. But she squeezed his steady hand.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

The dance that night was a little awkward, but it filled the coffers for Kellerman’s next season. They avoided the robot. They danced the meringue, and the crowd exploded. 

Their daughters were there, and her eldest was laughing the whole time – it was weird to her, this tomboy, watching her serious lawyer mothers float around the dance floor in heels and a short dress. 

Later that night, Frances watched Johnny dance with Sammy and felt her heart speed up again. They’d take it slow. They’d figure this out.

“You’re right, mom,” Jess said suddenly. “This place can be pretty fun, sometimes.”

Frances grinned and ruffled her oldest daughter’s hair.


End file.
